Shopping notes
Wondering what to give your favourite failed entrepreneur for Christmas? Why not try "Monopoly — The Collector's Edition" from the Franklin Mint? It features "a lush green playing surface" framed in hardwood, 24 carat gold plate tokens, houses and hotels "accented with sterling silver or gold" and double the usual amount of Monopoly money. Jail, we presume, is carpeted. Only $695 plus $3 postage.
Girls don't like maths
And if there's a little girl who needs more training in conforming to stereotypes, the US toy company Mattel has a new doll called "Teen Talk Barbie" which says four phrases. One of the phrases is "Math class is hard".
Incentive
"Commonwealth Bank of Australia, privatised last year, has wasted no time ratcheting its executive salaries up ... CBA's 1991-92 annual report reveals that its highest paid executive earned $600,000, up from $380,000 in 1990-91 and $230,000 in 1989-90, when the bank earned $524 million compared with $409 million in 1991-92." — Business Age, September 24.
Foxy
"When I read that [businessman] Lindsay Fox, together with Bill Kelty, is to launch a national campaign to encourage employers to provide work for unemployed youth, I was somewhat puzzled. Can this be the same person who, as director of Coles Myer Ltd, takes responsibility for the retrenchment of 15,525 staff in the 1990-91 financial year? (p.26 of the annual report)." From a letter to the September 24 Age.
Redeemable in heaven?
The Reverend Lee Jang-Rim, a South Korean preacher who predicts Christ's second coming on October 29, 1992 at 1.00 a.m., was arrested in Seoul on charges of fraud and hoarding foreign exchange. The district prosecutor's office said the alleged offences included using his followers' money to buy bonds maturing in May 1993.
Let them eat charters
In response to John Hewson's proposal to do away with the provision of the Reserve Bank's charter which makes full employment an objective, "Mr Keating said the Reserve Bank's charter had been 'of enormous comfort' to the unemployed during the past 40 years". — Sydney Morning Herald, October 2.